BACKGROUND HIV-1 coreceptor tropism testing is used to evaluate eligibility for CCR5 antagonist therapy. However, HIV-1 RNA-based tests are not suitable for virologically suppressed patients, therefore the use of proviral DNA tropism testing has been investigated. We describe a novel proviral DNA-based genotypic tropism assay and compare its performance to that of a sensitive HIV-1 RNA-based ge...

Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I)-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) is a disease that is clinically characterized by unremitting myelopathic symptoms, such as spastic paraparesis, lower back pain, bladder dysfunction, and mild sensory disorders of the limbs, which are symmetrical in most patients1. HTLV-I infection is a necessary condition for the develo...

Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus (JSRV) is a type D retrovirus specifically associated with a contagious lung tumor of sheep, sheep pulmonary adenomatosis (SPA). JSRV replicates actively in the transformed epithelial cells of the lung, and JSRV DNA and RNA have been detected in lymphoid tissues of naturally affected animals. To determine the lymphoid target cells of JSRV, CD4(+) T cells, CD8(+) T ce...

To investigate candidate genes that influence the risk of HTLV-I associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP), we analyzed 6 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the interleukin-10 (IL-10) promoter region. METHODS: 280 cases of HAM/TSP patients and 255 HTLV-I seropositive asymptomatic carriers (HCs) from Kagoshima, Japan were studied. All subjects gave written informed conse...